A new report has called for the United Kingdom’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED) to be relocated from London to the northern city of Lancaster (pictured).
Minister for the Cabinet Office, which oversees the country’s Public Service, Michael Gove has welcomed the report, which makes the case for relocating as many as 49,500 Public Servants from Whitehall to various locations across the north of England.
The research also proposes moving the Ministry of Defence to Preston.
Mr Gove said that over decades there had been a growing disconnect between the Government machine and those it sought to help.
“All too often Departments and the senior ranks of the Civil Service recruit in their own image, restricting cognitive diversity and impacting the quality of policy development and delivery,” Mr Gove said.
“Despite efforts of the past, all major Government Departments are still based in London, with the concentration of senior, policy and economic jobs that comes with it,” he said.
Mr Grove said the Government would be working to reduce the distance between itself and the people by relocating Government decision-making centres to different parts of the United Kingdom.
“This report adds to the economic, social, moral and intellectual imperative for change as well as laying out some of the benefits to levelling-up, decision-making, tackling group-think and ensuring that powerful voices within every arm of Government are better in tune with the majority of public opinion,” he said.
Other proposals included in the report were moving the headquarters of the National Health Service to Liverpool, The Department of International Trade to Trafford, Manchester and the Home Office to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
London, 4 November 2020
